the seclusion of the emperors and the gathering of the reins of government into the hands of shoguns was a gradual process, beginning not long after the introduction of chinese civilization, and continuing to grow until iyéyas?, the founder of the tokugawa dynasty, through his code of laws, took from the emperor the last vestige of real power, and perfected the feudal system which maintained the sway[170] of his house for two hundred and fifty years of peace.
the emperor's court, with its literary and ?sthetic quiet, its simplicity of life and complexity of etiquette, was the centre of the culture and art of japan, but never the centre of luxury. after the growth of the tokugawa power had secured for that house and its retainers great hereditary possessions, the emperor's court was a mere shadow in the presence of the magnificence in which the tokugawas and the daimios chose to live. the wealth of the country was in the hands of those who held the real power, and the emperor was dependent for his support upon his great vassal, who held the land, collected the taxes, made the laws, and gave to his master whatever seemed necessary for his maintenance in the simple style of the old days, keeping for himself and for his retainers enough to make yedo, the tokugawa capital, the centre of a luxury far surpassing anything ever seen at the emperor's own court. while the kugé, the old imperial nobility, formerly the governors of the provinces under the emperors, lived in respectable but often extreme poverty [171]at kyoto, the landed nobility, or daimios, brought, after many struggles, under the sway of the tokugawas, built for themselves palaces and pleasure gardens in the moated city of yedo. at yedo with its castle, its gardens, its yashikis, and its fortifications, was established a new court, more luxurious, but less artistic and cultivated, than the old court of kyoto. in the various provinces, too, at every castle town, a little court arose about the castle, and the daimio became not only the feudal chief, but the patron of literature and art among his people, as the years went by filling his kura with choice works of art, in lacquer, bronze, silver, and pottery, to be brought out on special occasions. these nobles, under a law of iyémits?, the third of the tokugawa line, were compelled to spend half of each year at the city of the shoguns; and each had his yashiki, or large house and garden, in the city. at this house, his family must reside permanently, as hostages for the loyalty of their lord while away. the annual journeys to and from yedo were events not only in the lives of the daimios and their trains of retainers, but in the lives of the country people who[172] lived along the roads by which they must travel. the time and style of each journey for each daimio were rigidly prescribed in the laws of iyémits?, as well as the behavior of the country people who might meet the procession moving towards yedo, or returning therefrom. when some noble, or any member of his family, was to pass through a certain section of the country, great preparations were made beforehand. not only was traffic stopped along the route, but every door and window had to be closed. by no means was any one to show himself, or to look in any way upon the passing procession. to do so was to commit a profane deed, punishable by a fine. among other things, no cooking was allowed on that day. all the food must be prepared the day before, as the air was supposed to become polluted by the smoke from the fires. thus through crowded cities, full and busy with life, the daimio in his curtained palanquin, with numerous retinue, would pass by; but wherever he approached, the place would be as deserted and silent as if plague-stricken. it is hardly necessary to add that these journeys, attended with so much ceremony and[173] inconvenience to the people, were not as frequent as the trips now taken, at a moment's notice, from one city to another, by these very same men.
one story current in tokyo shows the narrowing effect of such seclusion. a noble who had traveled into yedo, across one of the large bridges built over the sumida river, remarked one day to his companions that he was greatly disappointed on seeing that bridge. "from the pictures," he said, "which i have seen, the bridge seemed alive with people, the centre of life and activity, but the artists must exaggerate, for not a soul was on the bridge when i passed by."
the castle of the shogun in yedo, with its moats and fortifications, and its fine house and great kura, was reproduced on a small scale in the castles scattered through the country; and as in yedo the yashikis of the daimios stood next to the inner moat of the castle, that the retainers might be ready to defend their lord at his earliest call, so in the provinces the yashikis of the samurai occupied a similar position about the daimio's castle.
it is curious to see that, as the shogun[174] took away the military and temporal power of the emperor, making of him only a figure-head without real power, so, to a certain degree, the daimio gave up, little by little, the personal control of his own province, the power falling into the hands of ambitious samurai, who became the councilors of their lord. the samurai were the learned class and the military class; they were and are the life of japan; and it is no wonder that the nobles, protected and shielded from the world, and growing up without much education, should have changed in the course of centuries from strong, brave warriors into the delicate, effeminate, luxury-loving nobles of the present day. upon the loyalty and wisdom of the samurai, often upon some one man of undoubted ability, rested the greatness of the province and the prosperity of the master's house.
the life of the ladies in these daimios' houses is still a living memory to many of the older women of japan; but it is a memory only, and has given place to a different state of things. the emperor occupies the castle of the shogun to-day, and every daimio's castle throughout the country is[175] in the hands of the imperial government. the old pleasure gardens of the nobles are turned into arsenals, schools, public parks, and other improvements of the new era. but here and there one finds some conservative family of nobles still keeping up in some measure the customs of former times; and daimios' houses there are still in tokyo, though stripped of power and of retainers, where life goes on in many ways much as it did in the old days. in such a house as this, one finds ladies-in-waiting, of the samurai rank, who serve her ladyship—the daimio's wife—in all personal service. in the old days, the daughters of the samurai were eager for the training in etiquette, and in all that belongs to nice housekeeping, that might be obtained by a few years of apprenticeship in a daimio's house, and gladly assumed the most menial positions for the sake of the education and reputation to be gained by such training.
the wife and daughters of a daimio led the quietest of lives, rarely passing beyond the four great walls that inclose the palace with its grounds. they saw the changes of the seasons in the flowers that bloomed in their lovely gardens, when, followed by[176] numerous attendants, they slowly walked through the bamboo groves or under the bloom-laden boughs of the plum or cherry trees, forming their views of life, its pleasures, its responsibilities, and its meaning, within the narrow limits of the daimio's yashiki.
their mornings were passed in the adorning of their own persons, and in the elaborate dressing of their luxuriant hair; the afternoons were spent in the tea ceremony, in writing poetry, or the execution of a sort of silk mosaic that is a favorite variety of fancy work still among the ladies of japan.
a story is told of one of the tokugawa princesses that illustrates the amusements of the shogun's daughters, and the pains that were taken to gratify their wishes, however unreasonable. the cherry-trees of the castle gardens of tokyo are noted for their beauty when in bloom during the month of april. it is said that once a daughter of the tokugawa house expressed a wish to give a garden party amid the blossoming cherry-trees in the month of december, and nothing would do but that her wishes must be carried out. her[177] retainers accordingly summoned to their aid skillful artificers, who from pink and white tissue paper produced myriads of cherry blossoms, so natural that they could hardly be distinguished from the real ones. these they fastened upon the trees in just such places as the real flowers would have chosen to occupy, and the happy princess gave her garden party in december under the pink mist of cherry blooms.
the children of a daimio's wife occupied her attention but little. they were placed in the charge of careful attendants, and the mother, though allowed to see them when she wished, was deprived of the pleasure of constant intercourse with them, and had none of the mother's cares which form so large a part of life to an ordinary japanese woman.
when we know that the average japanese girl is brought up strictly by her own mother, and thoroughly drilled in obedience and in all that is proper as regards etiquette and the duties of woman, we can imagine the narrowness of the education of the daimio's poor little daughter, surrounded, from early childhood, with numerous attendants of the strictest sort, to[178] teach her all that is proper according to the highest and severest standards. sometimes, by the whim or the indulgence of parents, or through exceptional circumstances in her surroundings, a samurai's daughter became more independent, more self-reliant, or better educated, than others of her rank; but such opportunities never came to the more carefully reared noble's daughter.
from her earliest childhood, she was addressed in the politest and most formal way, so that she could not help acquiring polite manners and speech. she was taught etiquette above all things, so that no rude action or speech would disgrace her rank; and that she should give due reverence to her superiors, courtesy to equals, and polite condescension to inferiors. she was taught especially to show kindness to the families under the rule of her father, and was early told of the noble's duty to protect and love his retainers, as a father loves and protects his children. from childhood, presents were made in her name to those around her, often without her previous knowledge or permission, and from them she would receive profuse[179] thanks,—lessons in the delights of beneficence which could not fail to make their impression on the child princess. even to inferiors she used the polite language,[34] and never the rude, brusque speech of men, or the careless phrases and expressions of the lower classes.
the education of the daimio's daughter was conducted entirely at home.[35] instead of going out to masters for instruction, she was taught by some one in the household,—one of her father's retainers, or perhaps a member of her own private retinue. teachers for certain branches came from outside, and these were not expected to give the lesson within a certain time and hurry away, but they would remain,[180] conversing, sipping tea, and partaking of sweetmeats, until their noble pupil was ready to receive them. hospitality required that the teacher be offered a meal after the lesson, and this meal etiquette would not permit him to refuse, so that both teacher and pupil must spend much time waiting for each other and for the lesson.
pursued in this leisurely way, the education of the noble's daughter could not advance very rapidly, and it usually ended with an extremely early marriage; and the girl wife would sometimes play with her doll in the new home until the living baby took its place to the young mother.
the samurai women, who in one position or another were close attendants on these noble ladies, performing for them every act of service, were often women of more than average intelligence and education. from childhood to old age, the noble ladies were never without one or more of these maids of honor, close at hand to help or advise. some entered the service in the lower positions for only a short period, leaving sooner or later to be married; for continued service in a daimio's household[181] meant a single life. many of them remained in the palace all their days, leading lives of devotion to their mistress; the comfort and ease of which hardly compensated for the endless formalities and the monotonous seclusion.
even the less responsible and more menial positions were not looked down upon, and the higher offices in the household were exceedingly honorable. when, once in a long while, a day's leave of absence was granted to one of these gentlewomen, and, loaded with presents sent by the daimio's lady, she went on her visit to her home, she was received as a greatly honored member of her own family. the respect which was paid to her knowledge of etiquette and dress was never lessened because of the menial services she might have performed for those of noble blood.
the lady who was the head attendant, and those in the higher positions, had a great deal of power and influence in matters that concerned their mistress and the household; just as the male retainers decided for the prince, and in their own way, many of the affairs of the province. the few conservative old ladies, the last[182] relics of the numerous retainers that once filled the castle, who still remain faithful in attendance in the homes now deprived of the grandeur of the olden times, look with horror upon the innovations of the present day, and sigh for the glory of old japan. it is only upon compulsion that they give up many of the now useless formalities, and resign themselves to seeing their once so honored lords jostle elbow to elbow with the common citizen.
i shall never forget the horror of one old lady, attendant on a noble's daughter of high rank, just entering the peeress' school, when it was told her that each student must carry in her own bundle of books and arrange them herself, and that the attendants were not allowed in the classroom. the poor old lady was doubtless indignant at the thought that her noble-born mistress should have to perform even so slight a task as the arranging of her own desk unaided.[*]
in the daimios' houses there was little of the culture or wit that graced the more aristocratic seclusion of kyoto, and none of the duties and responsibilities that belonged to the samurai women, so that the[183] life of the daimio's lady was perhaps more purposeless, and less stimulating to the noble qualities, than the lives of any other of the women of japan. surrounded by endless restrictions of etiquette, lacking both the stimulus that comes from physical toil and that to be derived from intellectual exertion, the ladies of this class of the nobility simply vegetated. there is little wonder that the nobles degenerated both mentally and physically during the years when the tokugawas held sway; for there was absolutely nothing in the lives of the women to fit them to be the wives and mothers of strong men. delicate, dainty, refined, dexterous in all manner of little things but helpless to act for themselves,—ladies to the inmost core of their beings, with instincts of honor and of noblesse oblige appearing in them from earliest childhood,—the years of seclusion, of deference from hundreds of retainers, of constant instruction in the duties as well as the dignities of their position, have produced an abiding effect upon the minds of the women of this aristocracy, and to-day even the youngest and smallest of them have the virtues as well as the failings produced by nearly[184] three centuries of training. they are lacking in force, in ambition, in clearness of thought, among a nation abounding in those qualities; but the national characteristics of dignity, charming manners, a quick sense of honor, and indomitable pride of race and nation, combined with a personal modesty almost deprecating in its humility,—these are found among the daughters of the nobles developed to their highest extent. with the qualities of gentleness and delicacy possessed by these ladies, which make them shrink from rough contact with the outer world, there are mingled the stronger qualities of moral and physical courage. a daimio's wife, as befitted the wife of a warrior and the daughter of long generations of brave men, never shrank from facing danger and death when necessary; and considered the taking of her own life an honorable and easy escape from being captured by her enemy.
two or three little ripples from the past broke into my life in tokyo, giving a little insight into those old feudal times, and the customs that were common then, but that are now gone forever. a story was told me in japan by a lady who had herself, as[185] a child, witnessed the events narrated. it illustrates the responsibility felt by the retainers for their lord and his house. a daimio fell into disgrace with the shogun, and was banished to his own capital,—a castle town several days' journey from yedo,—as a punishment for some offense. the castle gates were closed, and no communication with the outer world allowed. during this period of disgrace, it happened that the noble fell ill, and died quite suddenly before his punishment was ended. his death under such circumstances was the most terrible thing that could befall either himself or his family, as his funeral must be without the ordinary tokens of respect; and his tombstone, instead of bearing tribute to his virtues, and the favor in which he had been held by his lord, must be simply the monument of his disgrace. this being the case, the retainers felt that these evils must be averted at any cost. knowing that the shogun's anger was probably not so great as to make him wish to bring eternal disgrace to their dead lord, they at once decided to send a messenger to the shogun, begging for pardon on the plea of desperate illness, and asking [186]the restoration of his favor before the approach of death. the death was not announced, but the floor of the room in which the man had died was lifted up, and the body let down to the ground beneath; and through all the town it was announced that the daimio was hopelessly ill. forty days passed before the shogun sent to the retainers the token that the disgrace was removed, and during all those forty days, in castle and barrack and village, the fiction of the daimio's illness was kept up. as soon as the messengers returned, the body was drawn up again through the floor and placed on the bed; and all the retainers, from the least unto the greatest, were summoned into the room to congratulate their master upon his restoration to favor. one by one they entered the darkened room, prostrated themselves before the corpse, and uttered the formal words of congratulation. then when all, even to the little girl who, grown to womanhood, told me the story, had been through the horrible ceremony, it was announced that the master was dead,—that he had died immediately after the return of the messenger with the good tidings of pardon.[187] all obstacles being thus removed, the funeral was celebrated with due pomp and circumstance; and the tombstone of the daimio to-day gives no hint of the disgrace from which he so narrowly escaped.
another instance very similar, throwing some light on the custom of adoption or yoshi, referred to in a previous chapter, was the case of a nobleman who died without children, and without an heir appointed to inherit his title. it would never have done, in sending in the official notice of death, to be unable to name the legal head of the house and the successor to the title. there was also no male relative to perform the office of chief mourner at the funeral; and so the death of the nobleman was kept secret, and his house showed no signs of mourning during a long period, until a son satisfactory to all the members of the household had been adopted. when the legal notice of the adoption had been sent in, and the son received into the family as heir, then, and only then, was the death of the lord announced, the period of mourning begun, and the funeral ceremony performed.
upon one occasion i was visiting a japanese [188]lady, who knew the interest that i took in seeing and procuring the old-fashioned embroidered kimonos, which are now entirely out of style in japan, and which can only be obtained at second-hand clothing stores, or at private sale. my friend said that she had just been shown an assortment of old garments which were offered at private sale by the heirs of a lady, recently deceased, who had once been a maid of honor in a daimio's house. the clothes were still in the house, and were brought in, in a great basket, for my inspection. very beautiful garments they were, of silk, crêpe, and linen, embroidered elaborately, and in extremely good order. many of them seemed not to have been worn at all, but had been kept folded away for years, and only brought out when a fitting occasion came round at the proper season of the year. as we turned over the beautiful fabrics, a black broadcloth garment at the bottom of the basket aroused my curiosity, and i pulled it out and held it up for closer inspection. a curious garment it was, bound with white, and with a great white crest appliqué on the middle of the back. curious white stripes gave the[189] coat a military look, and it seemed appropriate rather to the wardrobe of some two-sworded warrior than to that of a gentlewoman of the old type. to the question, how did such a coat come to be in such a place? the older lady of the company—one to whom the old days were still the natural order and the new customs an exotic growth—explained that the garment rightfully belonged in the wardrobe of any lady-in-waiting in a daimio's house, for it was made to wear in case of fire or attack when the men were away, and the women were expected to guard the premises. further search among the relics of the past brought to light the rest of the costume: silk hakama, or full kilted trousers; a stiff, manlike black silk cap bound with a white band; and a spear cover of broadcloth, with a great white crest upon it, like the one on the broadcloth coat. these made up the uniform which must be donned in time of need by the ladies of the palace or the castle, for the defense of their lord's property. they had been folded away for twenty years among the embroidered robes, to come to light at last for the purpose of showing to a foreigner a phase of the old[190] life that was so much a matter of course to the older japanese that it never occurred to them even to mention it to a stranger. the elder lady of the house was wonderfully amused at my interest in these mute memorials of the past, and could never comprehend why i was willing to expend the sum of one dollar for the sake of gaining possession of a set of garments for which i could have no possible use. the uniform had probably never been worn in actual warfare, but its owner had been trained in the use of the long-handled spear, the cover of which she had kept stored away all these years; and had regarded herself as liable to be called into action at any time as one of the home guard, when the male retainers of her lord were in the field.
there are in the shops of tokyo to-day hundreds of colored prints illustrating the splendor of the shogunate; for the fine clothes, the pageants, the show and display that ended with the fall of the house of tokugawa, are still dear to the popular mind. in these one sees reproduced, in more than their original brilliancy of coloring, the daimios, with their trains of uniformed retainers, proceeding in stately pageant [191]to the palace of the shogun; the games, the dances, the reviews held before the shogun himself; the princess, with her train of ladies and attendants, visiting the cherry blossoms at uyéno, or crossing some swift but shallow river on her journey to yedo. there one sees the fleet of red-lacquered pleasure barges in which the shogun with his court sailed up the river to mukojima, in the spring, to view the cherry-trees which bloom along the banks for miles. one sees, too, the interiors of the daimios' houses, the intimate domestic scenes into which no outsider could ever penetrate. one picture shows the excitements consequent upon the advent of an heir to a noble house,—the happy mother on her couch, surrounded by brightly dressed ladies-in-waiting; the baby in the room adjoining; another group of brilliant beings preparing his bath; while down the long piazza, which opens upon the little courtyard in the centre of the house, one sees still other groups of servants, bringing the gifts with which the great mansion is flooded at such a time. still further away, across the courtyard, are the doctors, holding learned consultation around a little[192] table, and mixing medicines to secure the health and strength of both mother and baby.
the fall of the shogunate, and the abolition of castle and yashiki, have made a radical change in the fashions of dress in japan. one sees no longer the beautiful embroidered robes, except upon the stage, for the abolition of the great leisure class has put the flowered kimono out of fashion. there are no courts, small and great, scattered all through the country, where the ladies must be dressed in changing styles for the changing seasons, and where the embroideries that imitate most closely the natural flowers are sure of a market. when one asks, as every foreigner is likely to ask, the japanese ladies of one's acquaintance, "why have you given up the beautiful embroideries and gorgeous colors that you used to wear?" the answer always is, "there are no daimios' houses now." and this is regarded as a sufficient explanation of the change.[*]
i have in my possession to-day two dainty bits of the silk mosaic work before mentioned, the work of the sixteen-year-old wife of one of the proudest and most conservative [193]of the present generation of nobles. a dainty little creature she was, with a face upon which her two years of wifehood and one year of motherhood had left no trace of care. living amid her host of ladies and women servants, most of them older and wiser than herself; having no care and no amusements save the easy task of keeping herself pretty and well-dressed, and the amusement of watching her baby grow, and hearing the chance rumors that might come to her from the great new world into which her husband daily went, but with which she herself never mingled,—her days were one pleasant, monotonous round, unawakening alike either to soul or intellect. into this life of remoteness from all that belongs to the new era, imagine the excitement produced by the advent of a foreign lady, with an educated dog, whose wonderful intelligence had been already related to her by one of her own ladies-in-waiting. i shall always believe that my invitation into that exclusive house was due largely to the reports of my dog, carried to its proprietors by one of the lady servitors who had seen him perform upon one occasion. certain it is that[194] the first words of the little lady of the house to me were a question about the dog; and her last act of politeness to our party was a warm embrace of the handsome collie, who had given unimpeachable evidence that he understood a great deal of english,—a tongue which the daimio himself was painfully learning. the dainty child-wife with both arms buried in the heavy ruff of the astonished dog is a picture that comes to me often, and that brings up most pathetically the monotony of an existence into which so small a thing can bring so much. the lifelike black and white silk puppy, the creeping baby doll from kyoto, the silk mosaic box and chopstick case,—the work of my lady's delicate fingers,—are most agreeable reminders of the kindness and sweetness of the little wife, whose sixteen summers have been spent among the surroundings of thirty years ago, and who lives, like the enchanted princess of the fairy tales, wrapped about by a spell which separates her from the bustling world of to-day. the product of the past,—the daughter of the last of the shoguns,—she dwells in her enchanted house, among the relics of a[195] past which is still the present to her and to her household. so lovely, so ?sthetic, so dainty and charming seems the world into which one enters there, that one would not care to break the spell that holds it as it is, and let the girl-wife, with her gentlewomen and her kneeling servants, hurry forward into the busy, perplexing life of to-day. may time deal gently with her and hers, nor rudely break the enchantment that surrounds her!
footnotes:
[33] yashiki, or spread-out house, was the name given to the palace and grounds of a daimio's city residence, and also to the barracks occupied by his retainers, both in city and country. in the city the barracks of the samurai were built as a hollow square, in the centre of which stood the palace and grounds of their lord, and this whole place was the daimio's yashiki. in the castle towns the daimio's palace and gardens stood within the castle inclosure, surrounded by a moat, while the yashikis of the samurai were placed without the moat. they in turn were separated from the business part of the village sometimes by a second or third moat. by life in castle and yashiki we mean the life of the daimio, whether in city or country.
[34] the japanese language is full of expressions showing different shades of meaning in the politeness or respect implied. there are words and expressions which superiors in rank use to inferiors, or vice versa, and others used among equals. some phrases belong especially to the language of the high-born, just as there are common expressions of the people. some verbs in this extremely complex language must be altered in their termination according to the degree of honor in which the subject of the action is held in the speaker's mind.
[35] the establishment of the peeress' school, mentioned in the last chapter, is a great innovation upon the old-time ways of many of the aristocratic families.
